In my parent’s bio I mentioned how I was glad to have grown up in the country (now that the growing up was over). Though this was said as kind of a joke there is a lot of truth in it. The more I live in a large city and watch the daily news, the more I wish others had had the same opportunity.

There were 8 biological children from my family and usually a few cousins all growing up together in the same house. No, I do not know how my parents managed it all but there are some things I have come to realize over the years about their parenting skills. Hopefully, my siblings will also see this or even other lessons I have overlooked.

I will begin with some of the most obvious thoughts you may have already considered and go from there. At least, what I believe may be some of the most obvious but then others may, again, fill in the blanks from their own perspective. So, the first place, in my opinion, is that there was NO WAY my parents could keep a constant eye on 8 to 12 children all at once (and of course we knew this subconsciously at least).

With that as a starting point, the next observation is we, the children, had a LOT of land to move around on which included fields, pecan groves, pine woods, and a canal (which was not on our land but that did not mean much to kids back then). Even so, we somehow knew not to get out of range of our mother’s voice (and let me tell you that lady could be heard a LONG way when she wanted to). Whether from the older children or the constant reinforcement through whippings (not spankings, I am talking about switches here) if we happened to stray to far this was a Lesson Learned pretty darn quick by each and every one of us I believe.

The next recollection I seem to have is that at least one of our parents was always close by if we needed them. They were not there to control us completely but if we felt we needed help, were in trouble (usually somebody had told on us), or just plain afraid one of them was always there for us. They may not have been happy (especially if we were in trouble – AGAIN) but they were there and they genuinely cared about us.